Javafx 2.2 and Snow Leopard

Question

I need to deploy a JavaFX2.2 application on Mac machines. OS X 10.7 or later are fine with Java 7u7. What about OS X 10.6? Do we have any workaround? I think 10.6 can update upto Java 6u35 and somewhere I read 2.1 & 2.2 can run with 6u26 or later (However there are no support though which is ok).

Can someone please help me to accomplish this? Can we just download standalone JFX2.2 runtime from somewhere and put it on OSX10.6? Or any other alternative option? Is there a way we can copy/package 2.2 runtime along with the app itself?

Please help.

Answer 1

Is there a way we can copy/package 2.2 runtime along with the app itself?

Yes, see the documentation on self-contained application packaging which is supported on OS X 10.7+ and includes JavaFX 2.2+ and jre7u6+.

What about OS X 10.6?

Quote from an oracle forum thread by the JavaFX lead regarding Snow Leopard support and JavaFX 2.2:

FWIW, there are in fact some APIs we use from Lion that aren't on Snow Leopard. Also, Apple only supports the current release of the OS - 1 (so now it would be Lion and Mountain Lion), and for deployment we needed special hooks. The thought was that it didn't make sense to support versions of the Mac OS that Apple themselves didn't support any longer.

Some of the early developer builds of JavaFX (2.0/2.1) did run on Snow Leopard, but they were only early development builds and not production ready, plus, I don't think the license on those builds allow you to use them in production code. I don't think these early 2.0/2.1 development builds are distributed by Oracle anymore.

When JavaFX is fully open sourced, you might be able to undertake an effort to backport it to Snow Leopard, but by then it probably wouldn't be worth it.

As a hack, you could try adding the JavaFX runtime bundled in jre7u7+ to an Apple Java6u35 and see if you can run an app - but this would be a totally unsupported configuration likely to break and may also have distribution licensing issues.

Answer 2

Reasons why mac does not work with javafx.. currently

From: https://blogs.oracle.com/henrik/entry/oracle_jdk_and_javafx_sdk

Quote:

Note that support on Mac is for development only; e.g. we don't expect your Mac to be running a business critical server-side application...

Context: JavaFx is still in development on mac since java7, full on support was expected at java 8. Java 8 will be real eased september

From: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javafx/downloads/supportedconfigurations-1506746.html Quote:

MacOs is only supported in 10.7.3 or greater (Mac OS X Lion, the second newest operating system)

Context: Stating JavaFx supported configurations. There are many browsers where JavaFx will not work!

From: http://docs.oracle.com/javafx/

Quote:

JavaFX applications run on a desktop. On Windows, they also run in a browser, and over the web.

Context: This with following quote implies only developmental progress on macOS

From: http://ed4becky.net/homepage/javafx-from-the-trenches-part-2-its-not-always-about-the-sex/?rcommentid=26916&rerror=incorrect-captcha-sol&rchash=35499a8f4e0544f950435495d20b0cf1#commentform

Quote:

Turns out there is a bug in the ChoiceBox – JIRA RT-26837 I talk about on the JavaFX2 Forum. It got the attention of Jonathan Giles at Oracle, and he escalated the fix, but it won’t be out until Java8 is released.

Context: There are still a lot of bugs that will keep you from success on mac!